


Sleeping Patterns

by Johns_Farthings



Series: Studies in Domesticity [2]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Insomnia, M/M, Magic, Waiting up for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-04 17:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20474636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johns_Farthings/pseuds/Johns_Farthings
Summary: Some night-time encounters and conversations between friends and lovers.





	1. Part One

Emma can’t sleep. She hasn’t slept well in a long time, and though it’s easier with Arabella quiet in the bed next her, she has bad dreams.

Arabella is different – she hardly remembers Lost Hope. But Emma spent years half-awake, half-asleep, half-mad, never wholly in one place or the other. She still finds sleep difficult, even when she’s so tired that she can hardly stand. She’s tried everything – long walks over the moors until her feet ache, hot drinks, reading. But every time she dreams about Lost Hope, she wakes with her heart pounding, convinced for a moment that she is back in her bed in London, confined to her room and surrounded by people who don’t understand.

Even when she remembers that she is free at last, sleep is hard afterwards.

Arabella has a boundless patience that Emma clings to like a candle in the dark. She sits for hours, rubbing Emma’s back and murmuring comforting things, fetching her something to drink, humming quietly. But this night Emma comes out of her dream with a silent start, and Arabella doesn’t wake. She sleeps on her side, mouth slightly open, and only sighs under her breath.

Emma watches her for a moment, heart beating hard between her ribs, but then she shakes her head. Let her sleep. Emma is a grown woman. She can cope.

She gets up, pulls on a shawl. The corridor is quiet, the bedroom door across the passage tightly shut. She and Arabella have the larger room, as Segundus sometimes stays at Starecross and Childermass is often away. Emma lingers for a moment at the top of the stairs, listening, then pads down the chilly floorboards to the living room and stirs up the fire. Sparks flutter in the grate. She adds a log, and the fire blazes up. It doesn’t warm her. The room is too big – her back is cold and exposed, and the shadows creep and move around her like dancers in a wide, icy hall…

‘What brings you there, then?’

She starts, but it is just Childermass, leaning against the doorway with his pipe in his hand and his usual sideways smile on his face. She hadn’t heard him come down the stairs.

‘I could ask you the same thing.’

Childermass shrugs. ‘I woke up,’ he says, ‘saw the light. Thought I had better investigate.’

Emma looks down at the fire. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘No?’

‘I do not sleep well.’

Childermass watches her for a moment, then nods once, clicking the pipe against his teeth. ‘That is understandable.’

‘Not since your master-’

‘He is not my master anymore.’

‘Your master, Mr Norrell, he…’ Emma balls up her fists. Childermass has always been a strange figure in her life, now more so than ever. ‘He _did _this to me.’

‘He did many things.’ 

‘And you let him.’

‘I did not realise at first. It was not until…’ Childermass sighs. ‘Yes.’

She waits for him to apologise, and is glad when he doesn’t. It would be false, it isn’t like him. And he did not know, even if he did not care to listen. 

‘I find,’ Childermass says, ‘that fresh air helps me to sleep when my mind is busy.’

Emma hesitates, but Childermass turns as if he does not care if she comes or not, so she goes after him. She pauses to put her shoes on by the door – she has had quite enough of bare feet in the middle of the night – and steps out. The air is dark and cool, and she follows the glowing ember of Childermass’s pipe to the wall that runs around the garden, sits next to him. A frog burps, and leaves rustle. No music, no dancing - only a huff as Childermass breathes smoke into the night. She swings her feet against the stone wall, watches the smoke curl and twist in the moonlight. The smell is mild, not unpleasant.

Childermass holds the pipe out. ‘Do you want to try it?’

Emma has never taken tobacco before. It’s bitter and makes her cough, and she quickly gives the pipe back.

‘Perhaps it’s an acquired taste.’ Childermass inclines his head. ‘Especially for ladies like yourself.’

She shrugs, looks up at the stars. She is sure that Childermass would be able to tell her what constellations and shapes she should look for, but she does not ask him. She likes to see her own patterns.

They sit for a long time – she is not sure how long – until Childermass’s pipe burns down and he gets to his feet.

‘Goodnight,’ she says.

Childermass inclines his head, then hesitates. ‘If you are awake in the nights, I am a light sleeper. I do not mind sitting up for a while.’

She does not thank him, just as he does not apologise, but she nods.

When she goes inside at last, Childermass has already damped the fire and there are no more dancing shadows. She heads upstairs, drops her shawl on the floor where Arabella will complain about it in the morning and slips into bed. Arabella mumbles in her sleep, turns over. Emma edges closer, puts her forehead against Arabella’s back and breathes in the familiar smell of her nightdress, lavender and sleepy sweat, and, finally, drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two coming soon (hopefully). Also, this one is in present tense because apparently I can't keep anything consistent.


	2. Part Two

Segundus is not awake every night that Childermass is away. If he was, he would never sleep, and they are used to one or the other being absent – there were spaces of years between their first meetings, until their paths crossed and re-crossed and, at last, began to travel in the same direction. Segundus misses Childermass when he is not there, but he never feels alone. He has Arabella, Emma and his school, and, just as he is able to sense which direction he is facing without the help of sun or star, he always knows when Childermass is coming home.

If it is daylight, then Childermass will ride up to Starecross Hall to meet him, or come straight to the cottage and announce his presence with the thump of his boots in the corridor. But if it is night, and it does not matter what time, Segundus will wake up. It’s never the click of the kitchen door that rouses him, or even the sound of Brewer in the garden – he is always up before then, blinking in the darkness. He does not understand why, except that it must be something to do with magic or magicians, an old instinct pulling him out of sleep with the thought, _ah, John is coming home tonight. _So, Segundus will go down to the kitchen to boil water for tea, and wait.

It is a dark night in late Autumn, leaves browning and cracking and the days turning cold, when Segundus wakes, and Childermass does not come.

He sits up. It’s raining, water bouncing off the shutters and the thatch, and the usual thought, _John will be here soon_, tugs at him. He shivers, puts on thick socks and lights a candle. A yawn pulls at his jaw as he opens the bedroom door. Sometimes, there is a light shining under Emma and Arabella’s door, and he knocks and makes tea for them as well. Tonight, though, there is no light, and he heads straight downstairs to the kitchen at the back of the house. He stokes the fire and puts the kettle on it, cuts two slices of bread and two pieces of cheese to melt over them. Wind stirs outside, bringing an icy, earthy smell. Soon, it will be winter. Segundus does not like cold weather, but Childermass is different. Hot or cold, wind and rain, he will ride through it. He never seems to feel changes in the seasons.

The firelight throws shadows on the walls. The kettle boils, but there is no knock on the door. Segundus pours tea, counts the _tick-tick-tick _of the clock in the hall – a piece elegantly carved with flowers and birds, brought by Arabella from Venice. The tea goes cold on the table. Segundus bites his lip, glancing at the door. Childermass is more than half an hour late.

Something is wrong.

Segundus fetches the silver basin from his bedroom – he tries to keep magical objects away from Emma, who mistrusts them, not without reason – and brings it to the kitchen. He fills it with water, divides it into four and touches a bright spot into life. He divides the bowl again, and again, until…

Childermass is in Yorkshire, close to Starecross. Segundus knew that, or he would not have woken. He watches the dot, waiting for its slow progress across the water that will show Childermass coming home, but though the water ripples, the light remains still.

Of course, Childermass might have stayed for the night somewhere. But the rain is not heavy, and there is plenty of moonlight. He would not have stopped so near to the village, and not come home.

Segundus trips over his own feet in his haste to get to the front door, upsetting one of the cups of cold tea. He leaves the spill to drip, finds his boots and coat and puts them on over his nightshirt. There is a lantern by the door which Childermass insists they keep there – _you never know when you might have trouble in the night_ – and Segundus lights it with a quiet word. Orange flickers into the garden. The air is damp, full of rustles and soft noises, and Segundus waits for a moment on the step, letting his senses tighten until he’s certain which way to go.

He steps out, into the rain.

The village is silent, sleepy. No lights, except his own. A bat flies in a lazy circle by the church, a vague shape that shies away from his lantern as he passes by. Gates creak. Water trickles down the back of his neck, but by the time he realises that he has forgotten his hat, he is already on the moor-road. Too late to go back.

Childermass has been in Durham most recently, speaking to a group of learned men at the cathedral, and Segundus’s path draws him north, a tug in the direction Childermass will come – the way that magic will come. Segundus has always been drawn to magic, can sense it in a room or a house or a crowded street, and Childermass’s magic is as familiar to him as breathing.

The moor rustles, and his lungs ache. The moon is waxing, almost full, and he is mindful of who else might be on the path at night, especially now that magic has poured back to England like a river overflowing a bank. He keeps alert, though he’s tired, and watches the road closely.

He is not certain how far he has gone before something moves ahead of him. Segundus freezes. His breath rises golden in the lanternlight.

‘Hello?’ His voice wavers, cracks, and he is ashamed of how short he is, how afraid, but they must have seen him. He swallows, plants his feet in his boots, and his boots to the path. ‘Who goes there?’

‘John?’

Segundus blinks. For a moment, he is not certain who he is speaking to – he has been following Childermass’s magic all this time, and the change is subtle - but then Childermass steps forward, and the moonlight falls over his face. He is on foot, leading Brewer on the rein, and he has lost his hat, or at least, it is not on his head. There is a scratch on his cheek that bleeds black in the darkness, and another just below his left eye.

‘John.’ Segundus reaches for him. This is no Fairy trick. He would sense it, if it was. ‘What happened?’

‘We took a fall.’ Childermass turns to Brewer, strokes a hand over his long nose. ‘The path gave out under us, about a mile back. Not Brewer’s fault. I didn’t see it coming either.’

‘Are you hurt?’ Segundus’s heart is still beating in time to the Viennese clock, _tick-tick-tick_. He reaches up and touches Childermass’s face, runs a thumb over the cut on his cheek. It comes away sticky.

‘Only a few bruises. I need to look at Brewer’s leg, once we’re out of the wet, but we’re alright. It wasn’t far to fall, only the Devil to get out again.’ Childermass puts his hand over Segundus’s, lifts it away. His eyes catch silver the moonlight. ‘What are you doing, out here in the rain?’

‘You did not come back. I was afraid.’

It is not difficult to admit that he is afraid to Childermass, and Childermass only tuts, leans forward and kisses Segundus on his forehead. His face is rough, unshaven, and he smells of horse. Segundus does not care.

‘Thank you,’ Childermass murmurs, ‘but I am not in need of rescue tonight.’

‘I am a poor rescue party.’ Segundus adjusts the lantern. ‘I did not even think to bring my hat.’

‘You do not need a hat,’ Childermass says, ‘and you found me. I cannot hope for any better rescue than that.’

Segundus does not argue. It is a long walk to the village, with Brewer limping behind them and the rain making a cold mist in the air. The lights are still off in the cottage – he is glad he had not woken Arabella and Emma – and Segundus holds the lantern whilst Childermass tends to Brewer’s leg in the small stable, wrapping it tightly. Afterwards, in the kitchen, he wipes up the spilled tea and bathes Childermass’s scratched face and hands.

‘What did you fall into?’ he murmurs.

‘A gorse bush.’ Childermass touches his chin, where a scab is already forming. ‘Though I think it came out worse than me.’

‘It has left you with new scars.’ Segundus puts the bloody cloth by the door to deal with in the morning, picks up the kettle. 'Tea?'

Childermass shakes his head. ‘I am tired.’

‘You should eat something.’

‘In the morning. Please.’

Segundus gives in. The fire is burning low, and he is cold and wet and weary. Childermass pauses to pull off his boots in the hall, and Segundus goes upstairs ahead of him. He hangs his coat over the bedpost to drip onto the floorboards, but his nightshirt is damp and muddy underneath it. He does not want to light a candle to find a new one, so he simply shrugs the whole thing off and crawls into bed. The door creaks. Childermass shuffles around the room, taking off his shirt and pulling the tie out of his hair with a _scrawk_ that makes Segundus wince. Childermass sits on the bed heavily, kicks off his socks and swivels so that he is lying on his side facing Segundus.

‘You need to wash,’ Segundus mutters, edging closer anyway. ‘And your feet are cold.’

‘Oh, be quiet.’

‘John…’

‘Shh.’ Childermass throws an arm over Segundus’s shoulder, pulls him closer. ‘I’m alright. It was only a fall.’

‘It might not have been.’

‘You would have found me, if it had been worse. You would have woken up, like you always do, and you would have found me.’ Childermass sighs, pushes his face into the pillow so that his voice is muffled. ‘It was not my first tumble, and it will not be the last.’

‘Well…’ Segundus puts his knees against Childermass’s leg. ‘Try not to do it again.’

‘I promise. Now go to sleep.’

Segundus shuffles under the covers, and does as he is told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know whether I’m quite finished with sleeping arrangements yet, so there may be more to come of this, but not for a bit. I hope to get to a bit of Arabella’s perspective soon!


End file.
